Sangiin election in 1989

The Sangiin election in 1989 , formally the “15th Ordinary election of Sangiin MPs “( Japanese 第 15 回 参議院 議員 通常 選 挙 , dai-jūgo-kai Sangiin giin tsūjōotenyo ), to the Japanese council house ( Sangiin ) , the upper house (jōin) of the national parliament ( Kokkai ) took place on July 23rd In 1989. Half of the chamber, 126 members, stood for election in a ditch voting system : 76 were elected in the prefectures by simple non-transferable votes or simple majority voting in the single-seat constituencies, 50 by nationwide proportional representation.

History and election campaign

Sōsuke Uno had only assumed the chairmanship of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in June and replaced Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita . The largest opposition party, the Socialist Party of Japan (SPJ) was chaired by Takako Doi .

The main topics of the election campaign were the liberalization of the agricultural market, the introduction of a VAT in the fiscal year 1989, the recruit scandal from the previous year, which led to Takeshita's resignation, and a scandal over an extramarital affair published in June by Uno.

The major opposition parties SPJ, Kōmeitō, DSP and the newly created Rengō no Kai of the Rengō trade union federation had a common nomination strategy for constituency candidates.

Result

The turnout was 65.02% for direct elections and 65.01% for proportional representation, which was over six percentage points lower than in 1986.

Political party		Not an option	Constituencies			Proportional representation			Elected in 2007	Composition according to the choice
			be right	proportion of	Seats	be right	proportion of	Seats
	Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)	73	17,466,406	30.70%	21st	15,343,455	27.32%	15th	36	109
	Socialist Party of Japan (SPJ)	22nd	15.009.451	26.38%	26th	19,688,252	35.05%	20th	46	68
	Kōmeitō	11	2,900,947	5.10%	4th	6.097.971	10.86%	6th	10	21st
	Communist Party of Japan (CPJ)	9	5,012,424	8.81%	1	3,954,408	7.04%	4th	5	14th
	Rengo no Kai	0	3,878,783	6.82%	11	-			11	11
	Democratic Socialist Party (DSP)	5	2,066,533	3.63%	1	2,726,419	4.85%	2	3	8th
	Zeikintō ("Tax Party ")	1	889.633	1.56%	1	1,179,939	2.10%	1	2	3
	Dainiin Club	1	-			1,250,022	2.23%	1	1	2
	Sports-Heiwa-tō ("Sports and Peace Party")	0	-			993.989	1.77%	1	1	1
	Salaryman Shintō ("New Salaryman Party")	1	2,312,733	4.06%	0	4,936,873	8.79%	0	0	1
	Okinawa Kakushin Kyōtō Kaigi ("Progressive United Front Okinawa") (*)	0			1			0	1	1
	Others	0			0			0	0	0
	Independent	3	7,362,723	12.94%	10	-			10	13
total		126	56,899,634	100%	76	56.171.328	100%	50	126	252

(*) 沖 縄 革新 共 闘 会議 from Okinawa Shakai Taishūtō ("Socialist Mass Party Okinawa"), SPJ and KPJ

Constituencies

Decisive for the outcome of the election was the result in the single-mandate constituencies, of which the LDP only won three and the opposition 23. In the proportional representation, which replaced the national constituency in 1980, the SPJ was able to achieve more seats than the LDP for the first time

1989 constituency results
Party affiliation of the election winners (status: election day) : Liberal Democratic Party Socialist Party of Japan Kōmeitō Communist Party of Japan Rengo no Kai Democratic Socialist Party Zeikinto Okinawa Kakushin Kyōtō Kaigi Independent										Hokkaidō
									Aomori
									Akita	Iwate
								Niigata	Yamagata	Miyagi
							Ishikawa	Toyama	Tochigi	Fukushima
						Fukui	Nagano	Gunma	Saitama	Ibaraki
		Shimane	Tottori	Hyogo	Kyoto	Shiga	Gifu	Yamanashi	Tokyo	Chiba
		Yamaguchi	Hiroshima	Okayama	Osaka	Nara	Aichi	Shizuoka	Kanagawa
saga	Fukuoka					Wakayama	Mie
Nagasaki	Kumamoto	Ōita		Ehime	Kagawa
	Kagoshima	Miyazaki		Kochi	Tokushima
Okinawa

Effects

Distribution of seats after the election

With the LDP's biggest electoral defeat since its inception, the party lost a majority of the seats in the Sangiin for the first time, creating a so-called Nejire Kokkai ("twisted parliament"). Among other things, over the supplementary budget for the fiscal year 1989 and a law introduced by the opposition in the Sangiin to abolish value added tax, there was a conflict between the two chambers. In 1990 the mediation committee ( 両 院 協議 会 , ryōin-kyōgikai ) had to be convened for the first time for the budget .

The UN cabinet resigned. On August 8, 1989, the reformer Toshiki Kaifu against Yoshirō Hayashi and Shintarō Ishihara was elected LDP chairman and a day later in parliament was designated as prime minister. He was the second prime minister after Hitoshi Ashida in 1948 who was not confirmed by the Sangiin who voted for SPJ leader Takako Doi .

In Sangiin, the LDP only came close to a majority again in 1998 after the dissolution of the New Progressive Party , which, together with non-party members, was usually sufficient to control the chamber; it only achieved its own absolute majority after the 2016 Sangiin election , from which it was 121 of 242 seats emerged and after which the non-party Tatsuo Hirano joined a few days later .

Web links

• 第 15 回 参議院 議員 選 挙 . In:ザ ・ 選 挙 . JANJAN(Japan Alternative News for Justices and New Cultures), October 6, 2008,accessed December 19, 2010(Japanese). 
• Inter-Parliamentary Union : Japan, Parliamentary Chamber: Sangiin, Elections held in 1989

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication , Statistics Office, 日本 の 長期 統計 系列 , Chap. 27 公務員 ・ 選 挙 , Table 11: 参議院 議員 通常 選 挙 の 定 数 ， 立 候補 者 数 ， 選 挙 当日 有 権 者 数 ， 投票者 数 及 及 び 投票 率 （昭和 22 年 ～ 平 成 16 年） / Allotted Number, Candidates, Candidates, Candidates, Allotted Number Day, Voters and Voting Percentages of Ordinary Elections for the House of Councilors (1947--2004) (Japanese, English; MS Excel ; 34 kB)
2. ↑ ^{a b} Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication , Statistics Office, 日本 の 長期 統計 系列 , chap. 27 公務員 ・ 選 挙 , Table 13: 参議院 議員 通常 選 挙 の 党派 別 当選 者 数 及 び 得票 率 （昭和 22 年 ～ 平 成 16 年） / Persons Elected and Votes Polled by Political Parties - Ordinary Elections for the House of Councilors (1947- -2004) (Japanese, English; MS Excel ; 49 kB)